Huge TV ratings have turned up the heat on the NSW government stumping up the money to keep the Australian Open golf championships in Sydney.
AAP can reveal the final rounds of both the world-first dual-gender Australian Open, co-hosted by The Australian and Lakes clubs, and the Australian PGA Championship in Brisbane both proved massive ratings winners for the booming sport.
Min Woo Lee's wizardry and the compelling climax to the Open on Sunday drove both ratings and attendance figures to levels rarely seen since the halcyon days of Greg Norman proving the Pied Piper of the fairways in the 1980s and '90s.
